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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27498505">Somehow or Other</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint'>doublejoint</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Future Fic, Other, POV Alternating, Threesome - M/M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 02:29:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27498505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nice is an underwhelming word--but Yosaku can’t come up with anything better.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Johnny/Roronoa Zoro/Yosaku</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Somehow or Other</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s been better since they’ve gotten Zoro back, but Yosaku had always known it would be. Neither he nor Johnny had ever believed that Zoro wouldn’t come back, even after reading in the newspaper about cursed swords that lead their owners to brutal deaths, New World pirates with unimaginable strength and ability, and events that even now, after firsthand accounts, seem downright impossible. With a crew like that, anything is possible. They wouldn’t let Zoro die on them, and (more importantly) Zoro wouldn’t let himself die on them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s nice to have one’s faith rewarded, to sti in a boat, the village just in view on the edge of the horizon, and wait for the fish to bite, while Zoro sleeps between him and Johnny, every so often rolling over or scratching the scar on his chest, still dark against his skin after all these years. No, nice is an underwhelming word--but Yosaku can’t come up with anything better. He’s glad all the same. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoro raises his head, blinking a few times into the hazy sky, and sits up. The boat rocks slightly with the shift in his weight (he’d said that he and Luffy and Nami had started out in a small dinghy like this one, and even before that, the three of them often didn’t do much better than that--they had no use for a big boat, anyway; Yosaku’s always preferred solid ground under his feet to the rocking of a deck, and Zoro and Johnny are more suited to the ground, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A fish tugs on his line lightly; it’s not a big one but probably big enough not to have to throw back. The sound of the line reeling echoes over the water, against the waves, against the boat. The line strains; the rod bends; the fish, finally, emerges. It’s a little bigger than Yosaku had hoped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’s that, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not bad,” says Johnny. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoro leans, catlike, against Yosaku’s shoulder and unhooks the flopping fish for him, his fingers brushing Yosaku’s on the end of the line.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Zoro cannot remember a time in his life when he’d been this stationary. Even when he was a kid, and even those two years when he was training with Mihawk, he’d always known he’d have to go out there, to the vague notion of the sea and distant unknown lands, to achieve his goals. There had been no thoughts of what was to come after that, because his dream--and then Luffy’s, and then his again--had been the only outcome that had mattered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’d all been wandering when Zoro had first met Johnny and Yosaku, but he’d gone on to find a direction and they’d settled like tea leaves drifting to the bottom of a cup, He’d taken a circuitous way back to them, and hadn’t even known that that was where he was going, but in hindsight it makes sense. Of course that’s where he’d end up, at least for now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some days, he fishes with them; mostly he just sleeps in the boat, the sun on his face, Yosaku and Johnny saying words he only catches sometimes through a haze of half-dreams, blades flying toward him in slow motion, a sea king writhing in the air, the smell of blood and danger, until he wakes up fully with a dry mouth and an empty sky full of salty air above him, both Yosaku and Johnny within distance of his arms reaching out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sell most of the fish they catch but some they keep, to dry or to cook themselves. Zoro always scales them, and the kitchen knife always feels odd and a little small in his hands. Nothing like a sword, and fuck, he needs a good fight. He hasn’t made his location much of a secret, but he doesn’t get too many challengers either; sometimes Yosaku and Johnny fight him two-on-one but even the way they know him and the way he moves isn’t enough to make up for their relative lack of skill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’s not the type of person to ever be satisfied.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Johnny had only met Arlong that one time, but it was one damn time too many. What the villagers here had gone through all those years is horrifying, even secondhand, but he can’t blame Genzo for talking about it at the bar. It’s the kind of thing that has to stay in living memory, that the kids who don’t remember too well and the people, like him and Yosaku and Zoro, who had arrived after, need to know, of the village’s persistence, of the people lost along the way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yosaku is already sobbing into Johnny’s shirt, and Johnny’s not far behind him; he in turn buries his face in Zoro’s shoulder, pushing his sunglasses into his nose. Zoro, like always, looks calm, but the words are affecting him, too. Under the table, he squeezes Johnny’s hand, and he downs the rest of his sake in one go and doesn’t ask for another yet. Yosaku’s hand joins theirs a few seconds later, trembling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stay long after Genzo’s finished, and Johnny and Yosaku have stopped crying, and Zoro’s hands are loose, one still in Johnny’s hand and the other on his next cup of sake. Johnny’s only a little tipsy (crying makes him thirsty, damn it), tapping patterns with his fingers against Zoro’s hand, trying not to lean too hard against Yosaku. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he and Yosaku should try and fight Zoro again, but that would probably end badly. They’re too tired and--okay, maybe Johnny’s more than a little tipsy. But mostly tired. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You got the right idea, sleeping all day,” he says to Zoro.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoro smiles at him, so bright it’s a damn good thing Johnny’s wearing shades. What was he thinking about? Oh yeah, sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Finally caught on, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s drunk,” Yosaku whispers, very loudly, over Johnny’s head (rude).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow, they make their way home, Yosaku and Zoro arguing loudly over the correct way back and which one of them is the real responsible one and who’s not listening to who until they get there, somehow or other.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I just think it's cute how their birthdays are all in a row.</p><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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